A sudden flurry of words and actions has poured from government corners recently.  A week does not pass without some development in crime and corruption.  Not only do these things really exist, but now choristers in the government sponsored Guyana Tabernacle Choir chant loudly to attract the nation’s attention.

The President and ministers fancy themselves as Guyanese ‘Idols’ crooning sonatas to convince society that the government is serious.  In a very short time, some folks were arrested in connection with a pink suitcase; a handful of Customs officers were removed; a GuySuCo manager got the boot; a raid and seizure of assets occurred in Berbice; and the Attorney General spoke earnestly of a seizure of assets influenced by foreign intelligence.  In a couple of months only, the very things that observers have pointed to repeatedly are suddenly discoverable.  Previously, denounced “sensationalists” and “extremists” saw barbarians, while the government chose to see adventurers.  But for the first time, there is some semblance of concentrated attention to the accumulated putrescence of the last seventeen years.  This unprecedented alacrity has generated interest relative to purpose, sweep, quarry, and consistency.  Why? And why now?

Some associate this with 2011; others speak of excess baggage; and a few envisage a ‘clean slate’ concoction.  However, the real story could be reflective of the sinister at work and illustrative of those smooth and practised in subterfuges and contrivances.  Monitoring the diabolical at play in their workshop uncovers the intriguing and the hypocritical.

First, create a numbers illusion through low-level arrests and firings.  Second, crank up the propaganda machinery by giving operators something to point to.  Third, calculate that – given the state of the judiciary process and ancillary law enforcement apparatus – there is a very high probability that the individuals collared will escape with little more than slaps on the wrists, if not complete legal absolution.  Guyana is still the land of disappearing files, disappearing evidence and disappearing witnesses.  Fourth, decide upon these sacrificial tadpoles, which gives the bullfrogs opportunities to regroup and insulate themselves more insidiously.  Fifth, direct attention away from the real criminal oligarchs and powerhouses.  And when the smokescreen is exposed, lament in sackcloth and ashes that this government can never do any right for the carping and cynical.

In sum, this is an orchestrated circus.  Rather candidly, this government is once again the leading party to continuing deception through deliberate omission and pretended distance from the substantive corruption hierarchies.  No one believes any more; and all the government’s fragrances, no matter how packaged and beribboned, cannot conceal the core miasmic stench and the source of that stench, which is itself.

Three instances highlight this regime’s brazen hypocrisy and utter contempt for the intelligence of the Guyanese people.  It is the three instances embodied in the names Synergy Holdings, GECOM, and CLICO. The first story involves Synergy Holdings, a contract, and road construction.  All should be well, except that Synergy is not into road construction; that this is not its area of expertise; and that there is no history of similar undertakings. Regardless, here it is that of all the available foreign firms, of all the Guyanese interested in participating in this venture, it is Synergy.  What special and unique skills are possessed by this company?  What is it that separates it from competitors?  And why is it that the government believes that Guyanese would not have issues with its choice?

Maybe Synergy is good at subcontracting.  Perhaps, it is that, plus exquisite paving skills and installing street corner signals that are invisible to the lowly; except that no one is saying.

Next, there is GECOM.  It is an organization that is always in the eye of Guyanese storms, and where nothing goes unnoticed.  Against this backdrop, His Excellency looks at citizens and intones about single source procurement situations.  This is the same leader who dominates a Cabinet that approves the same single source arrangements over which he waxes sanctimoniously.  One has to wonder whether this is some game being played; whether Guyanese are so lacking in basic commonsense to not discern the palpable hypocrisy; or whether it does not matter if they discern or not.  Once, the Romans had a god named Janus who had two faces…  He now resides in Guyana.

Then, there is the small matter of CLICO.  The President climbs on a high horse to talk down to the public about monies accounted for, and audit results.  However, he is thunderously silent about information on: 1) who withdrew investments; 2) when they were allowed to do so; and 3) who made key related decisions.  The key is “when,” for this would furnish the trail of access to material, non-public information, and possible improper conduct both internally and externally.  Now, canefields of silence surround a former executive’s awareness of questionable activity prior to the firm’s collapse.  In spite of – perhaps because of – the President’s pronouncement, the gossamer’s web surrounding CLICO has only thickened through a believed sugary quid pro quo.

The point is that in the instances involving each of the three entities, there are harder and deeper questions beyond the superfluous and self-serving disseminations.  There are sordid truths on the periphery; truths indicative of considerable political nefariousness.  It is why the present awakening is but a calculated buzz; the sound and fury of the selective, the immaterial and, in the larger frame, the somewhat meaningless.  Thus it is that the latest crime and corruption busting extravaganza can only be rightly viewed as closer to The Stooges in Bollywood recreating A Fish called Wanda.